Unions Prepare for ‘Civil War’

CRC Senior Editor Matthew Vadum had an article in FrontPage Magazine about labor outrage at Michigan becoming a “right to work” state.

Here it is:

Unions Prepare for ‘Civil War’

By Matthew Vadum (FrontPage Magazine, Dec. 13, 2012)

Top Teamsters goon James R. Hoffa is threatening to bring “civil war” to Michigan in order to roll back the state’s new right to work law.

After Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed legislation aimed at breaking the labor movement’s death grip on Michigan’s near-comatose economy, Hoffa took to CNN Tuesday to declare, “This is just the first round of a battle that’s going to divide this state.” He added, “We’re going to have a civil war in this state.”

Hoffa also flippantly compared the enactment of the legislation to the attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago in which more than 3,000 Americans died.

While the Michigan House of Representatives debated the worker freedom bill on Tuesday, state lawmaker Douglas Geiss (D) took to the floor.

“There will be blood,” he said. “I really wish we had not gone here … I do not see solace, I do not see peace.”

In fact blood has already been spilled. While he was trying to interview right to work opponents outside the legislature in Lansing two days ago, conservative comedian-activist Steven Crowder was beaten up by union members. Apparently the perpetrators were upset that Crowder was asking questions and trying to prevent them from demolishing a temporary shelter that the good government group Americans for Prosperity had erected at the site. Crowder suffered a chipped tooth in the attack.

The new Michigan law strikes a powerful blow for freedom of association in the Wolverine State. Right to work laws weaken unions’ monopolistic control of local labor markets and protect workers’ ability to control their own destinies, free from pressure applied by union bosses. Such legislation allows employees to work without being forced to pay union dues which are often funneled to Democratic candidates and various radical causes. Michigan is now the 24th state to enact right to work legislation.

The state’s new right to work law will benefit the 576,000 Michigan workers who are currently forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment, according to the National Right to Work Committee. “Study after study shows that the 23 states that have passed Right to Work laws have a huge advantage in creating jobs and expanding their economies,” the group said before Snyder signed right to work into law in his state.

Organized labor has been taking it on the chin lately in the Great Lakes region, the cradle of the labor movement. After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker asked government union members last year to contribute a small percentage towards the costs of their pension plans and health care benefits, the Left falsely portrayed him as an enemy of democracy. The unions’ thuggish tactics failed to move lawmakers who approved the budget-balancing plan and Walker easily beat back a union-initiated recall election in June this year.

In last month’s election Michiganders gave a big thumbs-down to Proposal 2, a ballot initiative that would have amended the state constitution, further enshrining the power of unions and giving them greater control over state expenditures.

But none of this is good enough for Hoffa who would prefer to re-litigate the issue over and over until he obtains the result he desires.

“What they’re doing is basically, betraying democracy,” he said of Big Labor’s opponents. “If there’s any question here, let’s put it on the ballot and let the people of Michigan decide what’s good for Michigan.”

Of course Hoffa and his radical friends in the labor movement don’t actually give a farthing’s cuss about democracy. They care only about winning. To leftists the word democracy itself has a very different meaning than most Americans assign to it. To them democracy is Marxist mobocracy. And it’s only true democracy if they prevail. If they lose, it’s not democracy: the capitalists stole the election or took advantage of the people because they suffer from a mass “false consciousness.” Extremist rabble-rousers like Hoffa won’t claim democracy was served until the lawmakers or voters of Michigan do what leftists want them to do.

Hoffa’s rant comes as the activist Left becomes increasingly militant and cocky in light of the reelection last month of President Obama.

One George Soros-funded pressure group, the Campaign for America’s Future, launched a new website late last month aimed at promoting the same divisive Marxist tactics of class warfare that President Obama successfully used to distract the American people from his abysmal record.

Abandoning the use of political euphemism preached by radical organizing guru Saul Alinsky altogether, CAF named the new Internet site WageClassWar.org.

“America’s growing diversity and its increasingly socially liberal attitudes played a big role in this election,” CAF co-director Robert Borosage explained in a statement.

“But looking back, we are likely to see this as the first of the class warfare elections of our new Gilded Age of extreme inequality,” he said.

“More and more of our elections going forward will feature class warfare – only this time with the middle class fighting back. And candidates are going to have to be clear about which side they are on,” Borosage said.

“In 2012, candidates who supported the economic interests of the many over the few won their elections. Populism was the voice, but economic opportunity was the message. The pundits may wring their hands, but in the future it won’t be values voters, angry white men or soccer moms that win elections. It will be class war.”

Other than preaching class hatred and envy, it’s not entirely clear what tactics the new website will advocate.

Perhaps we should ask Steven Crowder to predict what those tactics might be.

Newsletter Signup

About Us

Capital Research Center (CRC) was established in 1984 to promote a better understanding of charity and philanthropy. We support the principles of individual liberty, a free market economy and limited constitutional government: These are the cornerstones of American society.